Don't Serbs and Romanians use Serbian and Romanian frequently, as opposed to Church Slavonic?

Romanians haven't used Church Slavonic for centuries. Liturgical Romanian is somewhat musty -- it has preserved a lot of Slavic loanwords that the literary and spoken language has generally replaced by e.g. cool French borrowings -- but it's still readily understandable.

curious...Have any of the Romainians kept the Cyrillic Alphabet alive after they discontinued it,when it was in use ,to write in the romainian Language...It would be a shame to lose it ,since it's part of there history....

Plus i would asume they would still have 17 century writings and before, Romainian written in the Cyrillic script be they Gospels and saint writings .....

Don't Serbs and Romanians use Serbian and Romanian frequently, as opposed to Church Slavonic? And Antiochian Church Arabic, is it intelligible?

The Arabic used in the Antiochian Orthodox Church is liturgical and ancient.It is not vernacular Arabic.

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The memory of God should be treasured in our hearts like the precious pearl mentioned in the Holy Gospel. Our life's goal should be to nurture and contemplate God always within, and never let it depart, for this steadfastness will drive demons away from us. - Paraphrased from St. Philotheus of Sinai Writings from the Philokalia: On Prayer of the Heart,Translated from the Russian by E. Kadloubovksy and G.E.H. Palmer, Faber and Faber, London, Boston, 1992 printing.

Church Slavonic was the spoken vernacular when it was adopted, as was Latin. Ditto Coptic and Ge'ez.

Church Slavonic was never a spoken vernacular during the time of St. Cyril and St. Methodius. They created a written and liturgical language with vocabulary based on the old Slavic dialect of the Thessaloniki region.

There is no evidence that Church Slavonic differed at all from what they spoke in Thessalonika at the time.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

On the positive side, using a dead language ensures that the meaning of words won't change. To wit, "Worship".

LOL. Not for a language living on in its progeny, e.g. Attic/Koine and Demotic Greek, Church Slavonic and the various Slav languages, etc. in which case the meaning of the words change and confuse the modern speakers: one of my favorite examples is the Elizabethan "prevent," as in the BCP

Quote

Prevent us, O Lord,in all our doings with thy most gracious favour,and further us with thy continual help, that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Which makes no sense, until you know that "prevent" meant "to go before"

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

ORTHODOX CHURCH BANS MODERN GREEK IN LITURGY, Rejects Bishop's Initiative to Do Away with "Koine"

Athens (Greece), September 20, 2002

The Greek Orthodox Church has rejected a proposal to introduce modern Greek in the Liturgy.

The great majority of the Holy Synod opted to keep Koine Greek as it was spoken 2,000 years ago and used in New Testament texts. Koine has contributed to the "mystery" of the Liturgy, the Orthodox bishops emphasized...

...attempting to bring about themselves being chiefs with no Indians.

They do not speak Koine as it was spoken 2,000 years ago, for one thing, the pronunciation.

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

They do not speak Koine as it was spoken 2,000 years ago, for one thing, the pronunciation.

I've met a long series of Greeks who believe that Koine was pronounced exactly the same as Modern Greek. When confronted with the fact that, for example, there's a remarkably large amount of ways to represent the sound /i/, some (the moronic) responded that the ancient Greeks just liked to have so many letters, while others (more reasonable, but still wrong) claimed that all of the sound changes between Attic and Modern Greek happened so early BC that surely by the time of the New Testament, people were speaking with Modern Greek pronunciation. The use of the Reconstructed Pronunciation at foreign universities has been attacked as a tool to keep the Greeks down.

Relating back to a comment offered by someone, that one WRO priest's nose is constantly in an old 'missal' or service book is hardly an indication that he is intent on resurrecting an antiquated or, worse yet, apocryphal liturgical form and foisting it upon his unsuspecting parishioners. Many clergy (and, apparently, not a few laypersons, judging by the critiques the latter are oft prepared to offer) are serious students of liturgical history and as likely to be absorbed in such sacred texts as you might be in a treatise on coats of arms, were heraldry your defining interest in life.

It's my understanding that many WR priests have a vagante background and may still retain that mentality.

What do you mean by vagante mentality?

A kind of choose-your-own-adventure approach to religion, shuffling traditions around on a whim, bringing in devotions or practices seen in books or fondly remembered from a previous church.

A lot of vagante stuff is liturgical LARPing.

An interesting description of what vagante do - and not really off the mark. However, I think that suggesting that 'many WR priests have a vagante background' is an overstatement or exaggeration, if one understands what vagante were and are. There is no question that there are clergy to be found in almost any, if not every, Apostolic Church - Catholic or Orthodox (and not merely the WRO) who came from a vagante heritage but were subsequently received into orders by whatever sacred process the local bishop favored - vesting, conditional ordination, re-ordination, economia. The WRO certainly has no monopoly in this regard and I hardly think that many in its ranks can fairly be labeled such.

The term vagante literally means 'wandering'. In the usage we ordinarily apply, episcopus vagante or 'wandering bishop', it traces back to the Middle Ages when bishoprics (and chaplaincies) were sometimes bought, granted as political plums, or obtained through nepotism. Often such bishops were entitled to or received a benefice (a diocese or other canonical entity that carried an income with it). Some later lost it, as the politics of the kingdom or other secular entity shifted. A bishop without a jurisdiction, or who had been deprived of his, might wander, preaching, and supporting himself by goodwill, by donations, and sometimes by practices that we'd rightly define as simony. These individuals came to be termed episcopi vagante.

In modern times, the term has come to be applied to 'bishops', sometimes initially validly ordained, sometimes not, who claim to be of a mainstream religious belief, but aren't in communion with the established Church(es) of that faith. Although fingers are often pointed at Catholics as being the most frequently beset by these characters, the Catholics have no monopoly on the phenomenon.

All hierarchical Churches which emphasize the importance of their Apostolic Succession - Latin and Eastern Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, and Lutheran (at least in the 'High Church' divisions of the latter two) can point to vagante whose origins either lie with them or by whom they are plagued - or both.

Some potential hallmarks of a vagante, in no particular order, are that:

* they have grandiose titles (e.g., patriarchs, primates, supreme archbishops, and similar styling abounds among the genre); * they are vested in liturgical finery that would be the envy of a member of the papal court in its hour of greatest opulence; * they are surrounded by a small cadre of clerics with equally important titles, including sometimes multiple bishops, each of whom has been accorded a piece of the universe as their episcopal jurisdiction; * they post elaborate hierarchical genealogies on their websites or in their publications, purporting to prove their Apostolic Succession; * they offer the opportunity for ordination to the priesthood, and perhaps even to the episcopacy, to those who apply by e-mail or letter outlining appropriate credentials for same or who indicate a willingness to undertake a course of study (not uncommonly, for a fee); * they 'float' from one 'Church' to another, as there are splits in their ranks, frequently as a consequence of in-fighting among the leadership for the laz-y-boy recliner that doubles as the cathedra; * the name of their 'Church' will frequently include terms like "Catholic", "Orthodox", "Apostolic", often combined in imaginative ways; * the name of their 'Church' often suggests that it is a jurisdiction of, a branch of, or otherwise connected with an established mainstream Church or that it is a free-standing canonical jurisdiction (e.g., a patriarchate, an archdiocese, a primature, a diocese); * the name of their 'Church' suggests an ethnicity of origin that is belied by the appearance or surnames of the hierarchs and/or by any apparent connection with a mainstream Church of similar ethnicity or national origin; * their 'Churches' frequently are 'in communion' with other 'Churches' whose hierarchs display much the same characteristics as themselves; * their 'Church' consists of a single edifice, a storefront, an altar in their garage or family rec room, or lacks any street address, apparently existing only in the ethereal plane; * the reported census of faithful, if one can actually obtain a purported count, will frequently be outnumbered by the ordained clergy - perhaps even by the hierarchy; * those whose 'Churches' have 'parishes' will sometimes be shown (e,g., on websites) to each worship according to different rubrics and to even express different theological tenets; * their 'Churches' may mix theological doctrine with New Age, Eastern, spiritualistic, psychological, even alternative and holistic health concepts;

and, yes,

* they most commonly use obscure, sometimes historical, sometimes apocryphal, liturgies in their worship.

These days, the web has afforded such undertakings the ability to present an appearance of wholesomeness, stability, religious commitment, and seeming legitimacy that was never as easily achieved by the vagante of a century ago. There's nothing that quite so convinces one's on-line followers of sincerity and adherence to Church teachings as a strategically placed website photo of the Pope or the EP or another well-known hierarch of whatever Church with which the vagante would have you believe he is in communion. Even better, if the vagante can somehow obtain a 'photo op' and have the opportunity to be photographed with the Pope, the EP, whomever.

Vilatte, Mathew, Carfora, Ofiesh, Aneed, and the others of those times would be amazed at how far the genre has come.

True vagante have to be distinguished from those who have broken from their parent Churches, but have established an actual ecclesial entity, schismatic and/or heretical in the eyes of the parent Church, but with a level of respectability not usually accorded to those labeled vagante. To be fair, some of what are now considered mainstream, though schismatic, heretical, or non-canonical, Churches would, at their inception, have been deemed vagante.

That said, it's not a label to be casually applied.

Many years,

Neil

« Last Edit: May 22, 2011, 07:31:07 AM by Irish Melkite »

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"Not only is it unnecessary to adopt the customs of the Latin Rite to manifest one's Catholicism, it is an offense against the unity of the Church."

The memory of God should be treasured in our hearts like the precious pearl mentioned in the Holy Gospel. Our life's goal should be to nurture and contemplate God always within, and never let it depart, for this steadfastness will drive demons away from us. - Paraphrased from St. Philotheus of Sinai Writings from the Philokalia: On Prayer of the Heart,Translated from the Russian by E. Kadloubovksy and G.E.H. Palmer, Faber and Faber, London, Boston, 1992 printing.

A thorough and fair-minded description. I have to correct the incorrect Latin: the nominative (subject of a sentence) singular is episcopus vagans, and the nominative plural is episcopi vagantes.

We have to remember that there are also independents who became so not by breaking with anyone, but through other types of historical vagary. An example would be the non-Russian clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate in Italy when the MP was getting rid of them. The MP gave them "canonical releases" to no particular destination, and without attributing any wrongdoing to the clergyman being ejected.

I agree that such clergy could, with further passage of time, possibly fall into a clear vagante stance, or a clearly not vagante stance, or a stance difficult to characterize.

I understand written Latin pretty well but would not want to go a liturgy in it. Whenever I hear Benedictines do parts of the hours in Latin they somehow manage to make really well known things like the Lord's Prayer incomprehensible (though, I also don't like Gregorian chanting... Ambrosian is much nicer).

I understand written Latin pretty well but would not want to go a liturgy in it. Whenever I hear Benedictines do parts of the hours in Latin they somehow manage to make really well known things like the Lord's Prayer incomprehensible (though, I also don't like Gregorian chanting... Ambrosian is much nicer).

I think particular people sing ecclesiastical chant better than others. Stelios Kontakiotis, Giorgios Spanos, ALL music they sing people like it, no matter what music is, as long as it's from tradition. I have heard good gregorian chanting and I have heard bad gregorian chanting. Ambrosian chanting is sung just as badly by the people who sing gregorian badly, it depends who sings it, how they sing it. I am as bothered and deeply annoyed by "slow meandering mispronounced latin" that seems to fulfill no other purpose but to "fulfill an obligation" as anyone.

Once again, because the issue arrises over and over again, I want to clarify my purpose in starting this thread.My interest in the use of latin is primarily four areas.

The intention was NOT to dwell specifically on liturgical language, if I somehow suggested that in the first post, I apologize immensely.

#1 MUSIC - traditional chants that have never been adapted into english, I am thinking of "conductus", sequences, tropes and hymns to many saints.

In other words if you have a local orthodox church following the western rite named for St. Augustine of Canterbury, and the hymn for his feast as yet exists only in latin, it ought to be allowed to be sung in latin, until such time as it can be adapted into metrical english, which would warrant its replacing, so long as most parishoners agree. Perhaps all the music the rest of the year may be in entirely english and that is great! that's the way I like it myself ! , but exceptions must be allowed in important circumstances is all i am saying.If it's a choice between singing 19th century protestant music in english,no music at all, or latin.Sing the latin music if thats all that exists for the particular proper.

#2 - WESTERN RITE LITURGY IN MISSIONS, especially in spanish speaking communities, which once again I mention I come from one myself.If there exists very little acceptable liturgical translations or music in the spanish language , one ought to have no reservations about using latin if the people do not mind it, or like it, or NO BETTER OPTION exists.

#3 - EDUCATION OF SEMINARIANS/PRIESTS and even lay people, one can not fully understand the history of the western church without some knowledge of latin.Not all Latin Church fathers books exist in english translation, just as to learn certain Greek or Aramaic fathers writings, one must learn those particular languages.

#4 - PREJUDICE AGAINST BILINGUAL PRAYER/LITURGICAL BOOOKS - I have made liturgical booklets with latin on one side, and english on the other, simply because this is what I saw in many GREEK Orthodox Churches,except for them they had greek text on the other side and english on the other. I would hate to think someone felt "threatened" by the latin being written on the page instead of exclusively english. A church can continue using 99% english, even if some papers have latin translations on them, which should be viewed as for educational purposes, liturgical usage should be entirely optional.

I want to emphasize, that I am not intending on encouraging "latin masses" as something to take over the Orthodox western rite churches.

"I" myself, would be the first to say that I DEEPLY LOVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE liturgies.That being said, I personally enjoy and am fulfilled by LATIN LANGUAGE liturgies as well, BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND THE WORDS IN BOTH LANGUAGES.

All I am trying to do is end prejudice.Prejudice that leads to poor decisions and ignorance and well...byzantination and marginalization of the western rite, away from it's proper patrimony.

This is a fight against ignorance you see.Not some SSPX papal catholic infiltration of the True Church.ALTHOUGH, it wouldn't hurt some some traditional latin catholics to become orthodox.They're great people, I know because I talked to them for two hours earlier after Candlemas.Maybe set in their papal authoritarian ways, and not without problems, but very dedicated and the second closest thing to an Orthodox Christian that there is.

Perhaps my only curse is that I either am not communicating poorly.Or I am too overly intellectual for this forum, which I know is full of quite number of liberals and "unenlightened" people.

I don't pretend I'm better that anyone, or a scholar, but I do know that the faith of the west originates in latin.And for histories sake, for a western rite only recently revived, it needs understanding of that to grow properly beyond it.Into other languages. Nothing more, nothing less.

English is not the only exclusive language of the western rite.Latin is not the only exclusive language of the western rite.Nor Greek.

I support FREEDOM FOR ALL LANGUAGES 100% in liturgy, as long as they are not "everyday" monster truck rally slogan/dirty sailors language.

I believe that the belief that the divine can only be expressed in certain special languages is heresy.(That is we are defining "special language" in a broad sense, examples: that the liturgy can not be in tagalog (philipines), urdu (pakistan), iroquois (native north american)

If one defines "special language" as in that it must be "simple language that an illiterate farmer can understand like how shepherds tell dirty jokes, I would disagree.It must be poetic using an older educated persons form of the language, one that is not coarse but elaborate and beautiful.)

I believe that the point of view that the language used must be identical to that which is spoken by the masses (of illiterate farmers) is a heresy.

The Orthodox Church liturgy is not after all a monster truck rally,neither is the Orthodox Church an academic research institute for linguists.

So, yes I as well would commend the condemnation of the Trilingual Heresy, which was condemned by several popes did in the past, when frankish and venetian bishops who attempted to crush slavonic western rites into oblivion.

« Last Edit: February 03, 2012, 03:15:43 AM by Christopher McAvoy »

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"and for all who are Orthodox, and who hold the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, remember, O Lord, thy servants" - yet the post-conciliar RC hierarchy is tolerant of everyone and everything... except Catholic Tradition, for modernists are as salt with no taste, to be “thrown out and trampled under foot

Someone had stated that in Western Europe, originally, liturgy was held in various vernacular languages, but later on in time, Latin prevailed and everybody had to start using Latin.

That's factually untrue. Throughout Western Europe, the only known language was always Latin, and that in countries like Ireland and Saxony and Scotland and Brittany, where the vernacular was not even in the same linguistic branch as Latin.

And it never bothered them. They knew that to pray in church, you learn Latin.

To pray at home, you repeat the Lord's Prayer hundreds of times.

They produced a lot of Saints and would be surprised by this modern fad about liturgy having to be in the vernacular. It really is a fad, and was come up with only very recently in history.

St. Cyril and St. Methodius did invent a language, one could say, in that they created lots of previously-non-existing words borrowed from Greek so that the ecclesiastical terminology would be very exact and Orthodox. They also created some grammatical forms so that they could relay the aorist from Greek. It would have sounded not exactly foreign, but very high-brow and high-falutin', to those who spoke the Slavic vernacular at that time.

Surely the point of all this is that we should be very tolerant of whatever language we see used in church.

Oops, just responded to a post from page 1, which was probably eons ago. Modifying by replacing comment with a completely different comment.

Latin has also been demonstrated to have a very high correlation with improved academic performance, even in math. The only language to have a higher academics-performance correlation, is Hebrew. Hebrew is just above Latin. Lower down on the "totem pole" are German, then French, then Spanish, which seems to give only a mild "boost" to academic and testing performance.

Latin has also been demonstrated to have a very high correlation with improved academic performance, even in math. The only language to have a higher academics-performance correlation, is Hebrew. Hebrew is just above Latin. Lower down on the "totem pole" are German, then French, then Spanish, which seems to give only a mild "boost" to academic and testing performance.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Latin has also been demonstrated to have a very high correlation with improved academic performance, even in math. The only language to have a higher academics-performance correlation, is Hebrew. Hebrew is just above Latin. Lower down on the "totem pole" are German, then French, then Spanish, which seems to give only a mild "boost" to academic and testing performance.

Magic.

I am not sure if Fr. Aidan took Latin or how well he scored in academics, particularly critical thinking, but the above is rife with fallacies.

I'll let PtA count them.

Now since I excelled in all things academic, I can assure you Latin does nothing to impact academic achievement save perhaps showing why people have strange reasons for thinking English grammar ought to be the way they think it is.

It might have accounted in part for the fact that only one other person on the board bested me on the vocabulary test. (Although I would bet many here have had a higher quality Latin education than I did, as I taught myself with Wheelock's to pass a sitting exam.)

The fact that Hebrew is "above" Latin in the Father's post might suggest what is more at play in the relationship between Latin and academic success.

Latin has also been demonstrated to have a very high correlation with improved academic performance, even in math. The only language to have a higher academics-performance correlation, is Hebrew. Hebrew is just above Latin. Lower down on the "totem pole" are German, then French, then Spanish, which seems to give only a mild "boost" to academic and testing performance.

Magic.

I am not sure if Fr. Aidan took Latin or how well he scored in academics, particularly critical thinking, but the above is rife with fallacies.

I'll let PtA count them.

Now since I excelled in all things academic, I can assure you Latin does nothing to impact academic achievement save perhaps showing why people have strange reasons for thinking English grammar ought to be the way they think it is.

It might have accounted in part for the fact that only one other person on the board bested me on the vocabulary test. (Although I would bet many here have had a higher quality Latin education than I did, as I taught myself with Wheelock's to pass a sitting exam.)

The fact that Hebrew is "above" Latin in the Father's post might suggest what is more at play in the relationship between Latin and academic success.

Oh? And what would that be?

Are you claiming the studies are "rife with fallacies"? Because the paragraph you quote is not.

Not a terribly scientific study, but I did once do a project for our records department in HS when I was a wee lad, correlating ACT scores with those who took two years of foreign language compared to those who did not. Didn't isolate the all the variables, but it did show something like 5 points higher on the ACT (or something like that), whatever that means, for those who took the language.

« Last Edit: December 13, 2012, 10:46:59 PM by ialmisry »

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Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

My problem with the Western Rite is that it removes some of the Liturgical unity that I believe is important. However, that is a personal opinion, and the calendar issue has already pretty much done that. So, since we have a Western Rite, I am not all that particular with what language they want to use. All of the WR people that I know came out of the Anglican Communion. Latin is not thier language of choice, but rather English. I guess that if a boat load of Old Catholics came on board, I would not object to them using Latin - even if I did actually have anything to say about it. Now, if I could attend one of the old Liturgies from Venice during the time of Geovanni Gabrielli, I could easily be converted to the Western Rite.

Well, hopefully the only thing some converts to is Orthodoxy, not a ritual expression

However, I would like to point out that when the Apostolic Catholic Church was at its closest unity, it was most diverse in its expression. True, as we saw in the East, liturgical uniformity can be important when its the only thing uniting people under great persecution and limited freedom, but that's not the situation under which those parts of the world where Western Orthodoxy makes sense finds itself. If history shows us anything, in fact, it would actually be that unity is brought about when individual cultures express and incarnate the Apostolic Faith in their own peculiar ways.

I agree with Punch on this point.

What troubles me most about the Western Rite is that it seems every parish has its own very distinct way of doing things. I realize this is true in the Eastern Rite as well, but the differences are with musical settings and things, not so much in the "meat" of the liturgy. It troubles me that, essentially, the divine services are conducted according to the liturgical interests of the priest. I know a WR priest and it seems that a lot of his material is the result of his own personal liturgical archaeology, and I get the sense that is true elsewhere too.

This is not the same as the liturgical diversity of old, because the bishops still were intimately involved in those matters. Early on, the Churches were few and far-between, so bishops were personally present in many of the parish communities. But today, there are no Western Rite bishops. Our bishops—God bless them—in general have neither the time nor the knowledge to supervise these things. Their forte is the Eastern Orthodox ways as they have always been.

I would feel a lot more comfortable if there was a dedicated WR bishop(s) in the Churches that have WR parishes. But for now, it seems like the WR is a group of priests, to a large extent unsupervised, who are conducting liturgical experiments in their own little laboratories. Such things need to be done I suppose, and it was done in the past, but it should then be intimately overseen by bishops, whose Orthodoxy is thoroughly ingrained and above reproach.

I don't mean to be rude, but this is simply ignorant. I can only speak for the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate, but there we do have our own bishops (the Western Rite Vicar, hence, you know, the Vicariate). Jurisdictionally, we are under the same bishop as the ER parishes in our area, but there is also the Western Rite Vicar who oversees all of the Western Rite parishes and priests. What's more, they don't get to make things up as they go along. On the contrary, the AWRV publishes an Ordo every year laying out the rubrics for the services.

I would also encourage everyone to read A Short History of the Western Rite Vicariate. It provides a wonderful explanation of and apology for the Western Rite. As others have pointed out, you don't have to Greek, Russian, or Byzantine to be Orthodox. You don't have to change your culture to hold the Apostolic faith. On the contrary, the Church baptizes culture. As my priest likes to point out, for him becoming Western Rite was the most Orthodox thing he could do. I'm glad, too, that others have pointed out that liturgical diversity is actually the historical precedent of the Church. Uniformity was the later innovation.

I also want to echo the related point about Chrysostom's liturgy not having just been dropped out of the sky. It developed over centuries. This is a good reminder that complaints about "liturgical archaeology" are, pardon my French, a bunch of BS. The validity of a liturgy hangs on its Orthodoxy, on its mirroring the heavenly worship, and on its Eucharistic integrity, not on some test of historical purity or pedigree or a quixotic quest ad fontes. A lot of the complaints against WRO truly border on liturgical idolatry. I know I've put that rather severely, but I think it's true. And for that reason, I think the Western Rite is a necessary witness both to those outside the Orthodox Church as well as to those within.

Still catching up with this thread - sorry I just posted stuff that had already been said. Didn't mean to dig up stuff that had already been settled.

Also, I wanted to add, as I'm reading through these posts I'm seeing a lot of anecdotal complaints about specific WRO priests/parishes. I think the objections in principle to WRO are pretty easily refuted. The specific examples of problems don't refute the goodness or validity of WRO, but rather indicate a need for better enforcement of the existing rules and standards. I.e., it doesn't make sense to say X is bad because such-and-such person practiced X poorly. It does, perhaps, justify saying, "X should be better run."

Oops, just responded to a post from page 1, which was probably eons ago. Modifying by replacing comment with a completely different comment.

Latin has also been demonstrated to have a very high correlation with improved academic performance, even in math. The only language to have a higher academics-performance correlation, is Hebrew. Hebrew is just above Latin. Lower down on the "totem pole" are German, then French, then Spanish, which seems to give only a mild "boost" to academic and testing performance.

What about Greek?

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

Regarding Greek, it was not part of the study. The only languages I recall being in the correlation study were Spanish, French, German, Latin, and Hebrew.

There was another study, done over a ten-year period (if I recall) in Philadelphia, involving a very large number of students of all backgrounds and academic levels. They taught a little bit of Latin to a comparison group of students. The students taking Latin would get higher scores than the control group in various academic subjects, including math. Their academics got significant improvement, with the only apparent difference between the groups being the Latin instruction.

Latin instruction is on the rise everywhere across the nation. It can be found now in the tiniest little rural school districts - something unimaginable just 20 or 30 years ago. I guess the data were hard to argue with...

Looking back, I see that I did imply more than a correlation (between Latin and higher academic performance) in the earlier post, because I mentioned "improved" rather than "elevated" or "higher" academic achievement. The word "improved" does imply that things went from better to worse. And I don't know if that is borne out in the (first) study. Whew.